EXCLUSIVE: Talk’n’Job wins the UNLEASH World 2023 Startup Award

UNLEASH is thrilled to announce the winner of the 2023 UNLEASH World Startup Award.

Drum roll please…

The competition was fierce but coming out on top, after a three minute pitch (and tough questioning from our esteemed panel of judges), was Talk’n’Job–  a German-based virtual voice-guided job application.

It is particularly focused on blue collar, frontline workers, and it currently has 180 customers in seven countries. Examples include the NHS, Aldi, and Braun.

Talk’n’Job was thrilled to win the competition – as well as a huge cheque for a sponsorship package worth €50,000 – and they were surprised!

“I wasn’t expecting it, the competition was strong, but we managed to win the whole thing,” Karoline Bierlich, head of comms at Talk’n’Job said.

Bierlich led her team’s on-site competition pitch.

A huge shout out also goes to the rest of the competitors – Flowee, Revelio Labs, deskbird, and, last but not least, the winner of the first-ever UNLEASH Digital Startup Competition, Confirm!

Great job, and best of luck next time!

Behind Talk’n’job win

Thank you to our eight wonderful panel of judges – Mike Ettling from Unit4, Piyush Hermani of Mediahuis Ventures, allygatr’s CEO and founder Benjamin Visser, Juliane Sterlz from CoachHub, Acadian Ventures’ Thomas Otter, Kathi Enderes from The Josh Bersin Company, and Katarina Berg of Spotify.

UNLEASH got the exclusive, inside track from a few of our judges on why this program matters.

Sterlz, VP of global sales at CoachHub, shares: “I was impressed by Talk’n’Job’ s fresh approach, which streamlines the hiring process while delivering an easy-to-use solution for applicants.

“The product brings real disruption to talent acquisition, by narrowing the gap towards more inclusive hiring.”

allygatr’s CEO and founder Visser adds: “They really did a great presentation – and on time, which is really great; it’s a really tough to do them in three minutes.

“They’re a problem solver – the solution is easy, straightforward, and having quite impressive figures for the short time they’ve been on the market”.

The company was only founded in 2020.

For Enderes, SVP of research at The Josh Bersin Company, the reason for their win was the “focus on deskless workers”.

He said: “There are so many solutions that do knowledge workers – I think the market is overwhelmed with it.

“They are laser-focused on simplifying the user experience, the candidate experience for those that don’t work on a computer all day long.”